Cars are cool.
That's the basic concept that America has leaned on since the invention of the automobile, and that simple fact has dictated how we work and travel and vacation for well over a century at this point. In the process we've created a vehicular monoculture in this country that essentially demands that we buy cars, use gas, and build massive highways (often through neighborhoods not socioeconomically advantaged enough to prevent it), to the detriment of literally other form of transportation, most of which is more efficient and better for the environment.
But not as cool! And that still counts for something!
In college I drove a dark green 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier. It was originally my mom's car, had torn upholstery, the paint had faded from the roof, and came with genuine AM/FM radio and nothing else. I don't consider myself to be a person with particularly expensive tastes, but the Cavalier was strictly a choice made of convenience, not preference. When you're young and in college and single, it doesn't really matter how frugal you are in general, there are times when your lizard brain genuinely wants to impress other people. I lack other tangible qualities to do that on my own, and was never going to be able to do that in the car that I'm describing to you. I wanted a cool car. I was not fated to get one.
So maybe that's why I never felt the outrage the collective college football world expected me to feel circa 2011 when stories like this popped up on my radar:
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State's director of compliance is reviewing at least 50 car sales to Buckeyes athletes and relatives to see if they met NCAA rules, The Columbus Dispatch reported Saturday. [...]
The Dispatch reported that a car salesman who received game passes from Ohio State athletes handled many of the deals at two different dealerships. [...]
However, one case of a vehicle sale to a Buckeyes player, earlier reported as having a purchase price of $0, was clarified by the Dispatch on Wednesday.
The ESPN.com article goes on to list various alleged deals and potentially "shady" car exchanges but I distinctly remember reading about this and utterly failing to muster even the slightest ability to care. And I felt a little bad about this; had my moral compass really degraded to the point where the possibility of such blatant rule-breaking didn't even come close to raising an eyebrow?
No, as it turns out, because A) the Joe Paterno child abuse scandal was about to break a few months later, throwing all of this into sharp relief, and B) the NCAA had insane, archaic rules about amateurism, and C) cars are cool.
Still, cars (and more specifically, car dealerships) have for years been shorthand for NCAA rule-breaking. The winking and nudging about how other teams' players are driving new vehicles that they could never possibly afford has long been how rivals imply that their team is pure and good and the other team is bad and cheats. You drive Lamborghinis, we drive Flintstones cars with our feet sticking out of the bottom.
That might be changing. We've reported on C.J. Stroud's new car deal, but that's just one of many pretty incredible rides that college football players here and around the country are getting as a natural result of the NIL deals being offered to high-profile players. In particular, I'm a pretty huge fan of the sick paint job on Jaxon Smith-Njigba's ride, but I'm not going to lie: they all seem fantastic. Is it odd that a dude who has barely played at all in college gets an Aston Martin to tool around in? Yes. Is that reaction borne mostly out of jealously that I do not have an Aston Martin to tool around in? Also yes.
To me, despite whatever else NIL brings, this still brings a smile to my face. Even if they're loaners, and even if they should really be at least a hybrid, it's fun to see the faces of college kids light up in exactly the same way mine would've if I got handed those keys.
Now, the next step is to expand the vision of what these vehicle deals could be. Why a coupe? Wouldn't it be sweet to see an Ohio State quarterback pull up to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center in an Astrowagon? What's the exchange rate between a Mercedes and a handful of jet skis? Is there any reason a player can't have their own helicopter? A train? If we're going to do this, we might as well get creative with it.
It's understandable (and probably appropriate) to be wary of NIL as a concept, and especially as it has been applied so far. But it's okay to talk about guardrails while also acknowledging just how fun all of this looks.
